eBay Warning



This verbage is meant to be an alert for anyone buying on eBay, and
especially from the seller named "sevenchildren".

The following is as factual and as accurate as possible from my
point of view.  If Katherine Stine (aka:  K. Stine, sevenchildren,
goodbyeluna@attbi.com, goodbyeluna@comcast.net) or anyone else has any
comments as to the facts or accuracy of the following I will be glad to
include those comments here if they like.  Also, if anyone else has any
eBay horror stories I'll be glad to include them here.

Send any comments to Marshall Lake

On May 16, 2003 I won an auction from the seller named "sevenchildren"
and immediately sent payment via PayPal.  At the time I sent payment
I also sent an email directly to "sevenchildren" asking them to let
me know that payment was received and when my item would be shipped.
I did not hear back from "sevenchildren" until May 21, five days later.
I was concerned and sent multiple emails during those five days asking
for a response.  On May 21 I received a response saying that payment was
received and the item was shipped that day.  "sevenchildren" apologized
for the delay and stated her entire family was sick.  I wrote back asking
about their shipping policy and "sevenchildren" never responded.

A while later I saw another auction on eBay by "sevenchildren" and
attempted to bid upon it.  My bid was blocked.  I emailed "sevenchildren"
several times inquiring as to why I was blocked from bidding and I was
never given the courtesy of a response.  I attempted to bid on a couple
of more auctions by "sevenchildren" but was blocked from bidding each time.

At that time I tried to file a complaint with eBay citing that I was
blocked from bidding on the auctions of "sevenchildren" for no good reason
and that the seller was unresponsive to my emails.  eBay's response
to my complaint was that any seller can block any perspective buyer
from bidding on their auctions for any reason.  I also sent warnings to
several Rootsweb mailing lists.

In March of 2004 I created a new ID on eBay and bid on an auction of
"sevenchildren's".  I won the auction and immediately sent payment.
My payment was refunded by "sevenchildren" with no reason as to why.
I then left negative feedback for "sevenchildren" on eBay, and filed
for mediation with squaretrade.com.  "sevenchildren" responded to my
filing by effectively admitting that they blocked me because I asked
about their shipping policy.  The mediation was closed with no resolution.
I complained to eBay and was told that nothing could be done.

It seems to me that the sellers on eBay are pretty much omnipotent
even though I have not had any problems with any other sellers
besides "sevenchildren", also known as K. Stine, Katherine Stine,
goodbyeluna@attbi.com and goodbyeluna@comcast.net